When did the drivers for the first Freesco Module for a WiFi card get distributed (officially, or unofficially, to another normal user )?

I am not sure about unofficially, but I think there was an article written on how to make wifi run using FREESCO. As I recall it was sort of a complicated procedure and it was written for a pre 0.2.7 FREESCO box without package support. Ledow also released a compiled version of the pcmcia source code for FREESCO which I think was where I started tinkering with it as well. But everything inside that source is dated as NOV 2001. But he could have easily made something work even before then because there is a directory dated Oct 1999 in the source.

I was the first to make an actual installable pcmcia package which supported wifi for FREESCO and as I recall it was around NOV of 2002 when I had it working. But I don't remember if there is any documentation to probably back that claim up without a lot of digging on my part and it was actually developed for the 0.3.x series. Howler may actually remember something of that time frame because as I recall that was when all of the controversy with Serguei happened and he disappeared.

Is Serge still around? Anyone?

It has been quite a few years since I heard from Serguei . The last emails that I received indicated that he had lost all of his original source codes along with all of his equipment during the investigation over his employer smuggling arms and the US government confiscated everything he had computer wise. However to be clear on this incident, Serge was never charged with any crime to my knowledge. He didn't however give me any way to contact him and he also stated he was unable to continue with FREESCO. So anyone's guess is as good as mine as to where he is or if he is still around.With regards to early wifi and FREESCO the person probably of most interest to really talk with would be Simon Byrnand. He might have actually done some work in that area using FREESCO way before I did. Simon was the person who actually designed the first package system for FREESCO 0.2.7 and the last time I spoke with him. He was working on a Linux based wireless router using a newer kernel design so that he could implement the newer features of wifi.

TalkingToes, still in Seattle

To my knowledge, yes.

If you are afraid that you might make a mistake. The chances are high that you will never learn anything.

After thinking about this a bit further and doing some more checking of dates and such. At a minimum we could prove that FREESCO could pre date the patent date of Sep 2000 and it was distributed with the arlan driver. I personally only have the addon modules going back to 0.2.3a. But even those modules were created March of 2000

If you are afraid that you might make a mistake. The chances are high that you will never learn anything.